I too have a compulsion to stab the minstrels. Seriously, whenever they run by they just disturb me. So I give them a nice punch to the face so they run off and everyone treats me like I'm Douche-Bag of The Year. Like they never wanted to punch those mandolin-playing chickens.

But I loved the game, it jumped up on my 'Best Games Evarrr' list, right below Portal, and just above Chrono Trigger. It's flawed, sure, and the combat sucks donkey-bum, but all the things I loved about it made up for it. And there's a lot to love.

CrazyHaircut94:I too have a compulsion to stab the minstrels. Seriously, whenever they run by they just disturb me.

Once I got tired of throwing money on the ground, I found drawing my sword to be an effective technique. One minstrel ran up to me, I quietly draw my sword, and he dropped his lute and changed direction.

Little touches like that fill in the gaps nicely, for me. If anything the thing I like least is finding the seals. I'm finding the jumping puzzles a bit tedious.

I love the combat! Sure it's easy but I'm an Assassin and these chumps are just guards, of course I can kick their ass while making them look silly. My new tactic with the minstrels is to throw some gold at them, they promptly drop their lutes and I just carry on.

Does anyone else now want to stab their way to the front of queues with some hidden blades?

CrazyHaircut94:I too have a compulsion to stab the minstrels. Seriously, whenever they run by they just disturb me.

Once I got tired of throwing money on the ground, I found drawing my sword to be an effective technique. One minstrel ran up to me, I quietly draw my sword, and he dropped his lute and changed direction.

Little touches like that fill in the gaps nicely, for me. If anything the thing I like least is finding the seals. I'm finding the jumping puzzles a bit tedious.

I found them fun, but the controls made them somewhat painful. When I want to jump to the right, Ezio jumps left into a haystack. When I want to jump right-forward to a platform, he jumps down to the right. Thanks, that's what I want, repeat the last half hour of getting up where I was.

But I loooooove the black armor you get later. It's so fu***** awesome! :D

The gameplay of AC always bores me, but I muck through it for the story. I didn't give two craps about the jerk in the last game, I just played through the levels to get back to Desmond. How long are the levels in this one compared to the first game?

DaxStrife:The gameplay of AC always bores me, but I muck through it for the story. I didn't give two craps about the jerk in the last game, I just played through the levels to get back to Desmond. How long are the levels in this one compared to the first game?

I think you'll care more about Ezio than you did about Altair, but you don't actually go back to see Desmond in between levels.

DaxStrife:The gameplay of AC always bores me, but I muck through it for the story. I didn't give two craps about the jerk in the last game, I just played through the levels to get back to Desmond. How long are the levels in this one compared to the first game?

I think you'll care more about Ezio than you did about Altair, but you don't actually go back to see Desmond in between levels.

Well, you do, but not even close to as often. Besides that, the Desmond sections are much more fun, as they now consist of more than walking around 2 small rooms.

CrazyHaircut94:I too have a compulsion to stab the minstrels. Seriously, whenever they run by they just disturb me.

Once I got tired of throwing money on the ground, I found drawing my sword to be an effective technique. One minstrel ran up to me, I quietly draw my sword, and he dropped his lute and changed direction.

Little touches like that fill in the gaps nicely, for me. If anything the thing I like least is finding the seals. I'm finding the jumping puzzles a bit tedious.

I found them fun, but the controls made them somewhat painful. When I want to jump to the right, Ezio jumps left into a haystack. When I want to jump right-forward to a platform, he jumps down to the right. Thanks, that's what I want, repeat the last half hour of getting up where I was.

This is my main issue. The game often demands more precision than the controls allow. When you're jumping across the rooftops in any direction you want, it works great, but when you're confined to a narrow corridor, platforming your way across beams and broken architecture, it can get more than a little infuriating. Also, while I really liked the combat in the first one, I thought it sucked pretty hard this time around. Disappointing, considering how they improved every other aspect of the game. The combat in particular seemed like it had a lot of potential to be great, if they had just made the enemies smarter, but this did not happen. In fact, they may have gotten dumber.

DaxStrife:The gameplay of AC always bores me, but I muck through it for the story. I didn't give two craps about the jerk in the last game, I just played through the levels to get back to Desmond. How long are the levels in this one compared to the first game?

I think you'll care more about Ezio than you did about Altair, but you don't actually go back to see Desmond in between levels.

Well, you do, but not even close to as often. Besides that, the Desmond sections are much more fun, as they now consist of more than walking around 2 small rooms.

CrazyHaircut94:I too have a compulsion to stab the minstrels. Seriously, whenever they run by they just disturb me.

Once I got tired of throwing money on the ground, I found drawing my sword to be an effective technique. One minstrel ran up to me, I quietly draw my sword, and he dropped his lute and changed direction.

Little touches like that fill in the gaps nicely, for me. If anything the thing I like least is finding the seals. I'm finding the jumping puzzles a bit tedious.

I found them fun, but the controls made them somewhat painful. When I want to jump to the right, Ezio jumps left into a haystack. When I want to jump right-forward to a platform, he jumps down to the right. Thanks, that's what I want, repeat the last half hour of getting up where I was.

This is my main issue. The game often demands more precision than the controls allow. When you're jumping across the rooftops in any direction you want, it works great, but when you're confined to a narrow corridor, platforming your way across beams and broken architecture, it can get more than a little infuriating. Also, while I really liked the combat in the first one, I thought it sucked pretty hard this time around. Disappointing, considering how they improved every other aspect of the game. The combat in particular seemed like it had a lot of potential to be great, if they had just made the enemies smarter, but this did not happen. In fact, they may have gotten dumber.

It's like they're trying to work up the courage to attack. "Okay, I can do this. I will attack now. I will attack now. I will... Oh, that guy's going in. I guess I'll go in after."

And it feels like they wait even longer this time around. Not only that, but counter kills are even easier to pull off, so any challenge there was pretty much left the room as soon as you were allowed to carry a weapon. Oh, yeah, and the strafe ability is useless. Sure, you can get behind your opponent and finish him with one quick stab, but when you compare how often that actually works to how often you'll get hit in the face trying, it hardly seems worth the effort.

And it feels like they wait even longer this time around. Not only that, but counter kills are even easier to pull off, so any challenge there was pretty much left the room as soon as you were allowed to carry a weapon. Oh, yeah, and the strafe ability is useless. Sure, you can get behind your opponent and finish him with one quick stab, but when you compare how often that actually works to how often you'll get hit in the face trying, it hardly seems worth the effort.

And it feels like they wait even longer this time around. Not only that, but counter kills are even easier to pull off, so any challenge there was pretty much left the room as soon as you were allowed to carry a weapon. Oh, yeah, and the strafe ability is useless. Sure, you can get behind your opponent and finish him with one quick stab, but when you compare how often that actually works to how often you'll get hit in the face trying, it hardly seems worth the effort.

Yeah, I think that sums it up quite well, really.

Why thank you. Nice review, I forgot to say. I got caught up in bashing the combat.

It looks interesting, I said that about the first one though and never got round to playing it. And hey, at least the combat isn't as awful as Velvet Assassin, from the sounds of it it's hit the other end of the difficulty scale there. Also I resent the Britsh comment, I went to a boarding school and I do not talk like that lol!

Azure-Supernova:It looks interesting, I said that about the first one though and never got round to playing it. And hey, at least the combat isn't as awful as Velvet Assassin, from the sounds of it it's hit the other end of the difficulty scale there. Also I resent the Britsh comment, I went to a boarding school and I do not talk like that lol!

Ok, this person definitely did not play the game through to completion. Block&counter is a good way to die fighting brutes and seekers, unless you have the hidden blade equipped, in which case combat takes forever.

The enemies don't all take turns attacking you; this reveiwer is going to hell for lying. Much the contrary, there are some times an enemy will attack you when you're in the middle of an attack animation against another enemy and can't do a thing about it (again, this happens much more often late game). Which is a shame because I didn't think the first AC's combat had anything wrong with it.

And lastly, the video of the truth I wouldn't say is very confusing once you actually unlock the whole thing. The dialogue more or less clears it up when paired with the game's ending. What makes it confusing is that in the initial steps, there's no sound and it's fragmented.

All in all, it's pretty obvious that this reveiwer just played the first couple hours and not the complete game.

Being born and raised in San Gimignano, I was very disappointed in seeing that it's very different from the actual town. Monteriggioni is even worse, it has nothing in common with the real one (even though I can understand the poetic license needed to fit in the "SimCity" part).

daheikmeister:Tuo parli l'italiano?Sorry about that, I took an italian course :D

No offense, but you may have to study it more. What you wrote is "your speak the Italian?", the correct phrase is "(tu) parli italiano?". The pronoun is generally omitted in informal speech.

While I'm at it: this phrase is correct, but semantically is not very beautiful; I'm gonna have a hard time explaining, but basically if you say only "buono" it sort of means good like good food (has a good taste), else you should say "buon(o) [something]", in this case "a good game" = "un buon gioco". A more common phrase would be "è molto, molto bello" ("bello" = beautiful), because "bello" has a broader meaning that just being beautiful (again, it's not easy to explain).

Viruzzo:Being born and raised in San Gimignano, I was very disappointed in seeing that it's very different from the actual town. Monteriggioni is even worse, it has nothing in common with the real one (even though I can understand the poetic license needed to fit in the "SimCity" part).

daheikmeister:Tuo parli l'italiano?Sorry about that, I took an italian course :D

No offense, but you may have to study it more. What you wrote is "your speak the Italian?", the correct phrase is "(tu) parli italiano?". The pronoun is generally omitted in informal speech.

While I'm at it: this phrase is correct, but semantically is not very beautiful; I'm gonna have a hard time explaining, but basically if you say only "buono" it sort of means good like good food (has a good taste), else you should say "buon(o) [something]", in this case "a good game" = "un buon gioco". A more common phrase would be "è molto, molto bello" ("bello" = beautiful), because "bello" has a broader meaning that just being beautiful (again, it's not easy to explain).

Sorry, did the best I could without knowing the language.

Krythe:Ok, this person definitely did not play the game through to completion. Block&counter is a good way to die fighting brutes and seekers, unless you have the hidden blade equipped, in which case combat takes forever.

The enemies don't all take turns attacking you; this reveiwer is going to hell for lying. Much the contrary, there are some times an enemy will attack you when you're in the middle of an attack animation against another enemy and can't do a thing about it (again, this happens much more often late game). Which is a shame because I didn't think the first AC's combat had anything wrong with it.

And lastly, the video of the truth I wouldn't say is very confusing once you actually unlock the whole thing. The dialogue more or less clears it up when paired with the game's ending. What makes it confusing is that in the initial steps, there's no sound and it's fragmented.

All in all, it's pretty obvious that this reveiwer just played the first couple hours and not the complete game.

Wow, going to hell for lying, eh? No, the enemies don't literally take it in turns to attack you every single time (not that I claimed they did), but it certainly happens often enough to sap much of the enjoyment out of the combat.

As for saying the video of the truth makes sense once you've seen all of it...well, duh. Of course it does. You seem to be confusing my desire to not provide spoilers with not knowing what I'm talking about. The confusion of piecing together "the truth" is in fact part of what makes it enjoyable...just like any good mystery.